A bright flash and a roar like that of a jet engine signaled my return to consciousness.

For a moment, there was nothing other than the light, the sound, and horrible pain, then it all stopped abruptly and I was once again surrounded in quiet darkness. I flinched slightly as my eyes shot open -- my heart beating a mile a minute.

I laid where I was for a few moments longer as I waited for my heartbeat to slow. This wasn't like when I first arrived in Equestria or when I woke up in the Realm of Chaos.

Waking up here felt like I had awakened from a really bad, really vivid nightmare. The only difference was that the memory stuck, but thankfully the pain didn't. Once my heartbeat slowed to an acceptable pace, I let out a shaky breath and slowly sat up.

I went to rub my eyes and that's when I noticed that I still had my glasses. I took them off and stared at them as I ruminated on what had just happened to me. I played the scene out in my head over and over again, and realized that at some point I had lost my glasses in the chase.

And yet, here they were.

"This... this is gonna mess me up," I muttered as I continued to idly twirl my glasses around in my hand, "this is gonna end up messing me up bad."

It was true.

I didn't really understand what I was getting into -- what Discord was forcing on me -- not until that happened. Now I understood just how truly messed up my situation was, and the thought made me shudder.

Not only did I have to go through the living nightmare of being eaten alive, I also had nothing to show for it. I failed right out of the gate and now that universe was just... gone now.

That memory wouldn't be leaving me for a long time, if ever, and I knew there'd be more where that came from -- a lot more. One way or another, I had to try and get used to this or I'd literally go insane.

"But how the fuck am I supposed to do that?" I growled in frustration, tightening my grip on my glasses, "I'm still shaking just thinking about what happened back there."

With no small amount of effort, I pushed the thoughts to the back of my mind for the moment and focused on just where the hell I had ended up this time.

I put my glasses back on and looked around me, finally taking note of how quiet everything was, save for the constant creaking and settling of wood around me.

Now that I was actually paying attention to my surroundings, I could feel the floorboards slowly bobbing and shifting below me. The area I was in was incredibly small and, looking ahead, I could see why.

I was in a prison cell.

Iron bars covered one side of the small cell and the cell door was shut tight. Judging by the constantly creaking wood, the bobbing of the floor, and the distant sound of churning water, I wasn't in just any old prison cell.

I was in the brig.

On a ship.

"What? No, come on," I groaned, "what the fuck man, really?"

I was born and raised in Arizona, and I only ever traveled out of state a few times. None of those times did I ever get to travel on a ship of any kind. In fact, the only kind of boat I had been on was a small speed boat in a lake for maybe ten minutes once.

Needless to say, this was not how I envisioned my first time traveling by ship.

I half walked, half crawled my way over to the bars and tried to get a better look outside the cell. It was dark for the most part, but I could see a few rays of sunlight shining through small circular windows high above.

In the gloom, I could just barely make out some more cells on the opposite side of the room. I half expected everything to be old and rusty and moldy, but on the whole, the ship looked fairly clean.

The wood all around me was polished -- if a bit creaky, the iron bars were rust free and sturdy looking, even the manacles bolted to the wall behind me looked like they were in mint condition.

That of course, was marred by the fact that there were so many prison cells down here -- assuming I was at the very bottom of the ship itself. The odd thing was that there didn't seem to be anyone around.

I couldn't see inside the other cells, but if anyone was in them, they weren't making a sound. I didn't see any of the crew and I couldn't hear anything indicating activity from above.

The only sounds were the occasional creaks of wood and the sloshing waves outside.

"Odd... and slightly creepy," I mused aloud, "I'm really hoping this isn't some sort of pirate ship..."

As I scanned the area I began to feel a familiar itch. The itch was odd in that it didn't seem to be coming from any one place on my body and I was confused for a moment. After a moment's thought however, I realized this was the same itch I had felt back in the forest.

The more I focused on the itch, the less it actually felt like an itch. I didn't know what it felt like exactly, but by concentrating on it, I suddenly gained an odd sense of awareness. Like the strange feeling was nagging me to look in a certain direction.

My eyes widened slightly as I realized what this was.

This has to be that crystal sense thing Discord was talking about...

Having no desire to kick off a universal armageddon, I moved my attention elsewhere and the feeling was once more reduced to a slight itch.

"Yeah, that's not gonna get annoying at all," I muttered before letting out a sigh of frustration, "seriously, this is complete bullshit. How am I already captured? Did I just happen to land in the brig by complete chance? What the fuck, Discord?"

I groaned and made my way to the back of the cell where I sat against the back wall. I took my glasses off and rubbed my face wearily before looking out at the heavily blurred room outside my cell.

"Well, it doesn't look like I'm going anywhere anytime soon..."

With that, I decided to take stock of my current situation. I woke up in a locked cell -- whether by horrible luck or by the whims of that mismatched asshole, I couldn't say.

As far as I knew, there was no one else here but me. I didn't know who's ship this was, or if it was even a pony owned ship. It could've been run by griffons or minotaurs for all I knew.

I put my glasses back on, moved back towards the bars of my cell, and narrowed my eyes, trying to see past the darkness and into the other prison cells. A sudden and horrifying thought occurred to me as I looked at the many rows of cells.

What if this is a slave ship?

Given the nature of my 'journey' and the manacles on the wall, it was a very real possibility, but then if that were the case, then where were the slaves? I still couldn't see anything in the cells and--

A low groan somewhere to my left caught my attention.

Holy shit, there's actually someone else in here.

I opened my mouth to call out to whoever was here, but stopped short of actually saying anything. I was on a ship that could've been in the middle of the sea with no escape. I assumed no one knew I was here, and if that was the case, it was probably a better idea to keep it that way.

At least until I knew what was what.

So I waited to see if whoever was there would make another sound. After a minute, another groan came from my left, followed by a heavy fit of coughing. From the sound of it, the voice was coming from the cell next to mine.

I couldn't see into it due to the walls of the cell being made of some type of really sturdy wood, but the sound still carried through the bars and into my cell.

Another thing I had noticed was that the voice sounded feminine. Still, I held my silence and waited for whoever was there to inevitably speak up. After they had gotten their coughing under control they groaned again and I could hear the sound of movement.

"Ugh... where...?" the voice paused for a moment, "is... is this... oh... that's right, I -- ah!" another pause followed by what sounded like a hiss of pain, "oh my head... oh. OH! OH MY MANE!"

My brows shot up in bewilderment.

Rarity? Well fuck... didn't see that coming...

"I SWEAR, THOSE BRUTES KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HOW TO TREAT A LADY! I GIVE MYSELF UP PEACEFULLY AND WHAT DO THEY DO? THEY BASH MY HEAD IN AND DRAG ME HERE LIKE SOME SORT OF... OF... CAVE PONY'S WIFE!"

I winced and couldn't help but cast a worried glance to the room outside. I really hoped there was no one else around to hear Rarity's outburst -- which itself would've been funny had it not been for the situation we both found ourselves in.

"I did what they asked me to do!" Rarity growled, "I begged! I pleaded! I batted my lashes and turned up the charm and sacrificed everything to keep them safe! And still they... they... I couldn't... c-couldn't even..."

I heard a loud sniff followed by a high pitched whimper, which was then followed by an ear piercing wail that dissolved into heavy sobs.

"I'm... I'm s-so... sorry, girls!" she sniffed again, "I'm so sorry, Twilight! And... and Spike... I... I..."

Her words dissolved into more anguished wails and I felt my heart lurch unpleasantly in my chest at the sound. Whatever had happened to the mare, it was bad.

I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes before putting a hand over my face.

Just what the hell am I about to get myself into?

Thus begins the first actual adventure. Let's see how far he gets, shall we?